Our
chamber maid demonstrates how to make a penis-pillow into
a regular pillow

21 May, 1997, Tarbes
to Nogaro, 74km

In
Pau you can eat Indian food prepared and served by gay
boys on a terrace while gazing upon the very active
lesbian bar across the street not at all what I
expected from a far-flung provincial town in France.
Having my preconceptions challenged or shattered is one
of my favorite components of traveling, so I liked Pau a
lot. We had a restful, restorative couple of days in this
small, elegant capital of the Bearn region. The daytimes
were spent wandering around the labyrinthine streets,
doing laundry, computing and napping. Evenings were
devoted to eating and bar hopping. By far the best of
Paus three homo bars is a little place called
"Le GoWest", run by the very welcoming Manu and
Regis. Our first night there I got caught up with a trio
of funny young Spaniards in town for a friends
wedding, with whom I worked on improving my Castilian
Spanish. Francois was less amusing. After telling him my
fresh impressions of Lourdes, he told me that he used to
work there as a volunteer pushing around wheelchairs. He
said that every four years or so a bona fide miracle
occurs in Lourdes, though hed never seen one
personally. He took personal offense at my skepticism and
used the lame Catholic argument that Gods existence
is increasingly undeniable as science discovers the
universe to be larger and larger; who but God could have
created such a wonder? I also met an unlikely American
boy living in Pau, a half-Japanese, half-Mexican lawyer
named Steve who moved down there from Paris for the love
of one boy before getting involved with another. He
seemed happy living there at the base of the Pyrenees.
Its actually a place I could probably live, too,
and it was with some sadness and nostalgia that Fred and
I left this morning.

Our goal for the day was a
rather surreal one: the chapel of Notre Dame des
Cyclistes (Our Lady of the Cyclists NDC) near Labastide dArmagnac
and Roquefort (is this where the cheese comes fro? I
still havent found out). I had learned about the
cyclists chapel in a book and was thrilled to find it on
the map near our intended route. Unlike Lourdes, this
would be a pilgrimage we could make in earnest. We
started the day backtracking by train to Tarbes, since
the route from there northwards looked more appealing on
the map. Our intention to do so caused a bit of a stir at
the train station, since bringing bikes on the train
wasnt really allowed. We lucked out with a friendly
conductor, though, who not only permitted us to board,
but actually helped us getting our bikes up and down the
steep stairs living proof that not all the French
are assholes. Forty-five minutes later, we were back in
ugly Tarbes.

Todays route was not
so much a road as a country lane, a narrow ribbon of
bumpy asphalt meandering through a string of microscopic
villages which dot the broad valley of the Adour river.
Practically the only other vehicles we saw other than
bikes were the traveling butchers and bakers who sold
their goods out of the backs of their trucks. Not long
past our miserable lunch of microwaved café fare, we
entered the department of le Gers, synonymous with
deepest, darkest France. On a nearby hill we saw a
strange-looking structure reminiscent of Coit Tower in
San Francisco, and figured it was a fancy water tower.
Only afterwards did I learn from our guidebook that it
had been a "lantern of the dead", a hollow
stone column built in the eleventh to twelfth century.
The top would hold a beacon symbolizing the eternal life
of the soul, and a priest would recite prayers for the
dead at an alter inside, built above an ossuary (i.e. a
place for bones). Further down the road we mistook
another ancient structure in the distance La Tour
des Thermes dArmagnacfor a grain elevator. In
reality it had been a chateau, though not a very
beautiful one.

The chateau/fortress
marked our first climb of the day, out of the Ardour
valley and into the hills of Armagnac. The regions
famous beverage was heralded by the numerous vineyards
that suddenly surrounded us. Some had signs beside them
advertising a new brand of pesticide. In the center of
Nogaro, the largest town wed seen since Tarbes, we
had our second lunch of the day in a boulangerie,
contemplating the fifty k we had to go before reaching
our intended destination and the big black clouds that
were gathering.

We hadnt even made
it completely out of town before big fat drops began to
fall on us. Right in front of us was a hotel touting a
sauna and a pool; it didnt take us long to alter
our plans and dig our heels in for the night at
four-thirty, after only three and a half hours of
pedaling. We thought wed do some yoga, but opted
for a juicy nap followed by an unexceptional dinner in
our hotels dining room, which was occupied by
several Parisian-looking yuppies at tables by themselves,
pounding away at their laptops and gazing lovingly at
their shiny Westons. Next to us were an odd-looking
female couple smoking little cigars. One was so butch
that Fred thought she was a man at first, while the other
was all dolled up in a turn-of-the-century sort of
costume of velvet and lace. After a while, the two of
them disappeared behind a heavy curtain at the end of the
room, from whence horrible sounds began to emerge. One of
the woman (presumably the one in costume) was singing
while the other one ground her organ. It sounded like a
cat undergoing unanesthetized surgery, and Fred and I
theorized who comprised their audience; possibly the Gers
chapter of the National Masochists Society.

I couldnt resist
ordering Armagnac as a digestif, which I sweat out in the
sauna afterwards. It was so hot in the little box that
Im still sweating while I write this, wrapped in a
towel with one eye on the t.v., which is showing
Bertoluccis latest disaster, "Stealing
Beauty." We never did get around to doing yoga.
Maybe tomorrow.

22 May, Nogaro to St.
Symphorien, 113 km

Luckily the musicians from the evening were
not performing as we had breakfast. I joked with the
proprietor of the hotel about their performance and we
laughed together about how special it was. This day's
riding was much like the day before except for one
miracle (were considering changing the BratStats):
there was no rain. We rolled along a ridge for most of
the day by vineyards and little stands of trees. The
weather was cool and clear and it was the first time we
could say the word "spring" without following
it with "shower."

We rode quickly, filled
with excitement that we would finally see the sanctuary
dedicated to cyclists, "Notre Dame de
Cyclists." (NDC) We saw the sign marking the road
that led to the church and knew we had arrived somewhere
special. Wrought iron and bicycle parts spelling out the
name of the church in a large arch framed the path, the
church and the fields surrounding this magical place. As
we approached the chapel, surrounded in a little rose
garden was a statue of her holding a globe dedicated to
the free spirited rider. Crushed when we found out that
the church was closed to visitors for the next three
hours, and we had already exhausted all of the ridiculous
photo opportunities outside in fifteen minutes.

All the way into the next
town, Labastide dArmanac, Andy pined about wanting
to go back after a long lunch. I caved in. We lunched on
the square that had inspired King Henri the fourth to
build Place de Vosges in Paris. Built in 1197, it sported
the same arched arcades as the new version with slightly
less spectacular buildings. It marked the center of a
very square town that a birds eye view revealed in
the tourist office. In fact all bastides were planned to
be square, fortified, and, hence, easily defended in the
event of war (which happened with some frequency as the
brits and frogs fought for territory here.)

Before lunch we assumed
that the town was absolutely uninhabited. Not a single
shop was open and there was no one on the street. Soon we
saw crowds coming down a street all dressed in their best
clothing walking away from some event. I guessed a
funeral, and when we followed the crowds to the source it
was the cemetery. We had the misfortune of asking the
friend of the grieving son where to find an ATM,
following up with the question "who died
anyway?" He pointed at his friend and said "his
dad." We gave our condolences and looked for lunch.
Absolutely everyone in town was at the funeral and
Labastide dArmanac "came alive"
afterwards. Backgammon at a quiet little café hidden
away off the square followed our simple lunch of crepes
and salad. Andrew got excited about our impending visit
to the shrine and even lost a few games to me.

We raced back to Notre
Dame to find the caretaker just opening the doors to the
house of worship. She too had been at the interment and
had seen us lurking and asking for directions. The church
and gift shop was like no other Id been to. The
walls were covered with a collage of photos, jerseys,
flags, votives and bike parts. More colorful and
beautiful than any other church weve visited. After
opening the door the caretaker (who absolutely refused to
be photographed) began to light candles on a candelabra
made from bicycle parts. We began to notice that all of
the religious "furniture" in the place was made
from parts or wrought iron made to look like parts of
bicycles. We spent literally our last centimes on
postcards before noticing that she was also selling
stickers for bicycles with the name of the church and a
picture of "Notre Dame," when we asked if
shed take a french check for them, she gave them to
us. So moved, I gave here my Santa Cruz Bicycle Trip
water bottle filled with water from Lourdes for display.
She put it on display with the fifty other water bottles
some of the 25k other visitors had left. (maybe we should
have gone to "Notre Dame dElevators." See
following day)

As I mentioned earlier the
day was really lovely, and we rode until sunset through
charming little villages and groves of pine trees. One of
the villages we went through was Roquefort, which we
assumed was of blue cheese dressing fame. We were wrong.
Another was Luxey which housed another shrine of sorts.
The Cercle dUnion, a private club until a little
while ago (16 years), housed all the towns action. Here
septuagenarians tilted back brews, played cards, smoked,
chatted, read the paper and laughed at our ridiculous
outfits when we arrived. As a member, Andrew found out,
you could come there without buying a drink. The
membership fee was pretty heady, suggested 25FF, nearly
five dollars per year. After an Orangina I headed outside
avoiding the thick cloud of smoke that wafted around in
the place, while Andrew stayed inside and became best
friends with the proprietress of the Cercle and her 76
year old friend who had ridden his bicycle from Paris six
or seven times.

Outside I met a peer of
Andrews buddy who tolerated my french and even
complimented me on it. Touting that his friends in grade
school couldnt speak it and had to resort to
patois. He told me that he rides his bike every day to
the club and enjoyed his retired life in Luxey. Hed
been deported during the war to Norway and was excited to
have had the opportunity to have visited there so
cheaply. This was the land that time forgot. There are
probably only a few more years of beret-headed frenchmen
toting baguettes smoking Gitanes riding bikes. So
youd better hit Luxey before they illegalize
tobacco and they all die off.

We were frustrated many
times trying to find a hotel that night. First in Luxey
where a fat "wall-eyed" woman gave us no regard
and told us she was full though all the keys were on the
board behind her. We pedaled on another twenty kilometers
as the sun hovered forever on the horizon. Here the
owners of an Auberge told us of a "gite"
(bed-n-breakfast) 1k up the road. After two kilometers we
turned around and headed for the next town where we knew
there was a hotel, arriving there just as the pale yellow
orb was dipping below the horizon. Not impressed with the
accomodations, Andrew started to bargain with our
seemingly Arabic hotel operator in front of the other
guests. "I am not a rug merchant," he quipped,
ending bargaining. We didnt even change out of our
smelly biking attire for dinner. Thomas whipped us up a
simple meal of an omelet, steak and fries. The table wine
was great, signaling to us that we were close to
Bordeaux.

"They did it to me in the forest and it
hurt like hell. It took a long time to heal, too. My dad
wasnt exactly thrilled by the idea, since we
werent Muslims, but after I went out and had it
cut, there wasnt much he could do about it, was
there?" Thomas, our innkeeper from the Capo Verde
islands, was telling us about his circumcision at age
fourteen in Senegal while we were eating breakfast. He
did it to get dates, he said, since none of the local
girls wanted anything to do with his foreskin, and he
illustrated his subsequent success to us by thrusting his
hips in suggestive pantomime.

I heard many other
chapters in the Thomas story, like how he moved to France
for his studies, met a French girl who left him after
sixteen years of marriage. Aside from running St.
Symphoriens only bar/restaurant/hotel entirely by
himself, he is a martial arts instructor, though his
teaching is limited to theory since having some obscure
problems with his stomach. For his next vacation
hes returning to Senegal to marry his childhood
sweetheart, whos also just finished a
sixteen-year-old relationship. I could have stayed
listening to his stories told in an inimitably
animated fashionall day, but it we wanted to reach
Bordeaux before lunch.

On our way out, Thomas
introduced us to another guest: a youngish half-French,
half-American guy who was born in Hawaii and now works
selling and installing high-tech laser carrot graters. Is
St. Symphorien the weirdest place in France?

The road to Bordeaux was
pretty boring. Most of it was through the same scruffy
pine forest wed seen yesterday. I was dragging
seriously, for some reason or another, and Fred decided
he wanted to break the St. Symphorien-Bordeaux speed
record. I pleaded for him to stop in the first village
with a bakery, where I chewed on an apple slipper
(chausson a pommes; Fred calls them "apple
socks") and tried to feel more energetic. While
doing this, I watched the steady trickle of customers
walking out with their three-franc baguettes, wondering
how a village baker manages to make a living.

As we approached Bordeaux,
the traffic became seriously irritating, causing us to
opt for a calmer, more circuitous route through the
Graves vineyards and an endless suburban maze of
roundabouts and housing projects. The closer we got to
the town center, the scarier the traffic got. We saw a
couple of accidents on our way into town, including a car
that had managed to run straight into a bus. At Place des
Victoires, we stopped to get our bearings and met three
older American guys touring France on their bikes. They
werent particularly friendly, but I envied their
relatively light loads. A little further, an anal French
cycling enthusiast criticized the angle of my seat and
gave us some addresses of bike shops where I could get my
wheel fixed.

It didnt take us
long to score a room in the pedestrian zone that
constitutes the heart of the oldest part of Bordeaux. And
that was when it happened. We were loading our bags into
the elevator when the closing door slammed right onto
Freds nose. It made a horrible sound, and I knew
right away that we had to call a doctor.

When the doctor finally
arrived (one of the finest services in France is called
SOS Medecins, kind of a roving emergency room that comes
to you), all he could say was "Ce nest pas
evident," and give Fred a prescription for x-rays at
a nearby clinic. The radiologist there showed us that
Freds schnoz was truly broken, though not severely.
It would heal in a couple of weeks, he said, and all that
could be done in the meantime was to smear cream on it. I
endured a boondoggle of my own (an admittedly less
painful one) searching for a replacement rim for my
bicycle. From one bicycle shop to the next, I carried my
damaged wheel through the crowded streets of uptight
Bordeaux. People looked at me as if I was the incarnation
of the plague, the essence of bad taste. Though both
shops had said over the phone that they had the part, all
it took was one look to elicit the usual French response
of "Non, cest impossible."

For cocktail hour we went
to a queer bar called "lAlibi." As per
usual in France, we were treated like invisible men
inside; no one would return our looks or smiles; only the
bartender so much as acknowledged our existence. I broke
the ice by broaching a subject very dear to the French,
asking the barman very loudly, "Wheres a good
place for dinner?" At this, a small committee was
urgently formed at the end of the bar, and after much
hushed deliberation, an emissary was sent in the form of
a middle-aged fashion victim who introduced himself as
Denis. Denis instructed us to go to a place called
"Les Graves du Parlement" and drew us a very
elaborate map to get there. When I told him Id come
back and slap him if we didnt like the food, he got
all excited.

Dinner was more
serviceable than spectacular, but we were entertained by
the antics of the many homo passersby, many of them
dressed in the outfit du jour: black and white plaid
pants and bright red hiking boots. ("Cest la
mode," identically-dressed Denis explained to me
later, exhibiting an astounding lack of imagination).

The Spartacus guide
informed us that another bar called "Le Moyen
Age" (The Middle Ages) was the oldest gay bar in
France. Could the editors been referring to demographics?
In any case, the bar was appropriately named; we were the
youngest customers by at least two decades. We sat down
next to an anglophonic trio who actually said
"hello" to us. Chris and Graham were Brittanic,
and the hysterically flamboyant Michael was American. All
three worked on the "Silver Cloud", a big
cruise ship we had noticed earlier in the harbor. We
werent surprised when they told us they were the
entertainment; Michael and Chris were singer/dancers
while Graham just sang. They (actually Michael, since he
seldom let his Brit companions get a word in edgewise)
enlightened us as to the strange culture of working on a
cruise ship. I found it rather fascinating, and
Michaels strongly voiced biases had me practically
crying with laughter. He referred to gay men as
"marys" and used "chicken" as a
term of endearment (as in "We havent been to a
mary bar since Genoa, chicken, and what a hellhole that
place is.").

All the noise we were
making was eliciting decidedly unfriendly glares from the
sullen French patrons, so we led our new friends back to
the Alibi to shake that place up a little. I caused quite
a drama when a French boy I was talking to accidentally
burned my arm with his cigarette (If you remember to ask,
Ill show you the scar), which caused me to jerk and
spill some beer on both of us. Showing absolutely no
concern for me, the boy went into a total tizzy fit over
his shirt smelling like beer, which angered me enough to
add to his misfortune. This caused a general gasp from
the bar at large, and for a while I felt like persona non
grata, pleased with myself for breaking some rules in
this city so obsessed with decorum. One French boy who
would talk to me after the incident was an adorable
nineteen-year-old student of Italian called Florial,
whose sympathy, I suspect, stemmed partly from his being
a virulent anti-smoker himself. He said that Bordeaux was
famous for its pretentiousness and its
"faux-bourgeois" (a concept that was reiterated
verbatim the next day by a taxi driver, who also
confirmed my suspicions that Bordeaux drivers are among
the rudest in the known universe).

At three oclock or
so our singer/dancer friends tried to entice us to
accompany them to a nightclub, but we were both
dog-tired, so we dragged our smoke-and-beer-reeking
selves back to bed.

25 May, Bordeaux to
Soulac-sur-Mer, 122 KM

High grey clouds blanketed the sky as we
exited Bordeaux, the climate matching the scenery of the
port and the industrial part of the city. It was
remarkable how quickly wed left the bustle of
Bordeaux behind and were in the countryside, less than
5km from the center. We saw a ruined church in the middle
of a field that now served as a favorite grazing spot for
some horses, and remarked that these must be the only
French in church, given how much traffic there was on the
road today. Wed forgotten that it was French
Mothers day, and it appeared that everyone was
taking their mother to lunch.

Today was to be the day we
were to see all of the places our favorite wines are
grown and bottled. Names like Margaux, St. Estephe,
Pauillac, Medoc and St. Julien appeared on the signs
marking towns. The hillsides were covered with vines and
grand chateaux. As we got closer and closer to Pauillac
more and more rugby fans passed us, honking their horns
because our red panniers matched their team colors. This
became tedious as my neck began to fatigue from flinching
at the sound each time one passed. We found a quieter
road into Pauillac which revealed that not everyone in
the Medoc region is rich from wine. Sad state-built
apartments housed those with less glamorous jobs at the
vineyards.

The only bad wine Id
ever had from France was a Pauillac. The cork had gone
bad and the wine was foul. Wed been prepared for
the bad attitudes of people in Medoc by some of the folks
wed met in the city, but we werent ready for
the reception we had at lunch in Puillac. For the first
time in Europe no one wanted to serve us lunch in our
biking clothes. Wed go to a restaurant that was
doing a booming business, ask to be seated and were told
they were no longer serving or there were no tables.
Finally Andy pestered one hostess into giving us a table
in the back. We had to ask three times for a menu and two
times to order. Still Andy went away hungry because his
fish was more bones than fish. Our visit to Pauillac had
been foreshadowed by my experience with their wine. We
barely made it out of lunch in time to make it to what
was our planned highlight of the day.

Wed been excited to
see Chateau Mouton-Rothschild and tour their vineyard.
When we arrived we were disappointed to find that the
afternoon tour was overbooked and there was no room for
us. I had bought a 1988 four years ago and had saved it
to celebrate our departure on this trip, only to drop and
break it in our garage in Santa Cruz. We revealed this to
the tour leader, Gaelle, and joked with her about the
Scandalous 1993 label banned in America. (The
international label has a pencil drawing of a nude
"leeetle" girl in a provocative pose. A
California womans group declared it kiddie porn and
had it removed. Thus the label is blank in America.)

Our charms worked and next
thing we knew we were on the tour. It was fascinating.
Andy was especially interested in the handmade graphs on
each cask that detailed the progress of the first
fermentation of the wine. When we entered the hall of
barrels where the second fermentation was underway our
tour leader had an attack of giggles while describing the
label drama. Every time she looked at Andrew she started
laughing uncontrollably. She finally regained composure
and continued the tour. We learned how Rothschild, a Jew,
had escaped the Nazis and managed to hide his wine from
the invading hoards. Saw Philippines
(Philippes surviving daughter) immense personal
cave that contains 55K bottles of Mouton-Rothschild and
120K bottles of wine from the other grands crus of
Bordeaux. The maitre de cave changes the corks of all the
bottles every twenty years to preserve the wines. They
taste each bottle to make sure that it is still good
before they recork it - not a bad job?

Still a little flustered
by her giggle attack, our tour guide forgot to tell the
tour group that the visit was over; she dashed into the
tour building leaving us outside waiting for her. It was
only after Andy and I walked in, found out the tour was
over and told the others that the visit was complete that
we broke up. We decided to buy an 88 to have for a
picnic to celebrate being in France. Recalling my
clumsiness, the guide would not give me the bottle, but
handed it to Andy.

The rest of the day was an
unremarkable ride through vineyards against the wind to
Soulac sur Mer. We stopped in a little backwater for some
water and were treated to a serenade by a local drunk.
When Marilyns tune from "How to marry a
millionaire" (or was it "Gentlemen prefer
blonds"?) came on he began to dance and croon
"My aarrt beelongs to dahhdy". We arrived in
Soulac sur Mer not long after that, but not before Andy
got a flat on his new rim and tire. Celebrated the day
with a great meal of fish, watching the endless sunset
turn the sky from blue, to pink, to purple and finally to
black. We treated ourselves to a second desert on the way
back to our hotel, making it the days ultimate act
of gluttony.

Click
on image to see full-sized version

Fred mourns the loss of an old
friend

Click
on image to see full-sized version

Bearing the fruits of his labor in
La Rochelle

Soulac-sur-Mer to La
Rochelle, 94 KM (Andy) 133 KM (Fred)

Always knowing it to be inevitable,
Im glad it happened on a beautiful sunny day, and
in the morning.

There was little or no
foreshadowing in the first few hours of the day.
Breakfast was tranquil, if uninspired (French breakfasts
seldom hold surprises), served by our ever-cheerful,
swishy host, Philippe. When we checked out, he tried
giving me a map of La Girondes many bike paths, but
since we were about to leave the département, it would
be of little use. Philippe told me that most of the paths
followed abandoned road or rail beds built by the nazis,
and that, ironically, it was German tourists for the most
part who used them now.

We rode along one of these
paths for the ten kilometers to the ferry port, where we
caught a boat across the wide mouth of the Gironde.
Arriving in Royan, I told Fred I wanted to pull over to
apply sunscreen and get a look at the beach. And this is
when our unexpected meltdown occurred. First he
complained about carrying the bottle of wine we purchased
yesterday; then he got all upset over me somehow
scratching him while rubbing sunscreen into his back, and
launched into a tirade about how I didnt care about
him, etc. etc. Unable to deal with his anger and abuse, I
gave him the map and told him Id meet him in front
of the cathedral at La Rochelle at eight. (This is
Andys broad interpretation of the events and in no
way represents the actual event  complained =
reminding him of his promise to do so, didnt care
for = isnt careful .)

For the rest of the day I
felt alternately giddy and guilty for being on my own. I
loved being able to pedal in any direction I chose,
happily getting lost without a map, yet I worried about
Fred and hoped he was getting along okay.

I followed an intermittent
bike path along the beaches and headlands west of Royan.
This route involved some trial and error. Fred would have
hated it; I kept hearing his voice in my head:
"Lets just take the main road." The towns
I passed through were standard-issue French beach holiday
factory, filled with Brits and Germans in search of good
weather at off-season rates. But the beaches looked
mighty inviting and some of the views over the multi-hued
waters were stunning. After a while I stumbled upon a
bike path which was more or less continuous, rolling and
coasting through dunes and pine groves. The beaches were
dotted with nazi bunkers sinking into the sand at crazy
angles, resembling giant dice. The path petered out near
an enormous and ornate lighthouse (le phare de la
Coubre), and from here a marvelously quiet road led North
through a hilly forest. At one point it climbed steeply
to a height of 60 meters, where I was treated to a
panoramic view. I began to think it would be a good idea
for Fred and me to separate on a regular basis.

Another bike path led me
through the forest to the outskirts of a little town
called Ronce-les-Bains. I was starving and had no water
left in my bottles, so the sleazy little café in front
of me looked like the Promised Land. As I parked my bike
I noticed my tire going flat (the new one again, bien
sur), but decided to deal with my hunger and thirst
first. Lunch was a sandwich prepared by a vulgar little
gnome of a woman with intestinal troubles. The friendly
barman who repeatedly filled my bottles told me she had
eaten a dessert with too much creme anglaise the night
before, and that was why she was spending so much time in
the toilets. I avoided inspecting the womans hands
while I gnawed ravenously, and listened to the barman
tell me about the area. Normally he worked collecting the
oysters which were the little towns claim to fame.
He just helped out his friend during the tourist season.
During the winter, with the tourists all gone, he said,
Ronce-les-Bains was like a ghost town, "une ville
fantome."

Changing my tube and tire
was more of an ordeal than I had anticipated, mostly due
to the brand new tube being defective (the previous day,
I had broken part of the stem off the other one,
rendering it useless). When I finally pedaled off, it was
straight against a brutal wind. The bridge across to
Marennes provided a nice view of the oyster beds, yet it
required all my energy just to keep the bike moving.

On the other side of the
bridge the terrain flattened out considerably. There were
no more trees to protect cyclists from the wind, and the
marshy canal-strewn landscape reminded me of Holland
without the windmills. After several kilometers of
near-futile pedaling, the fortified village of Brouage
appeared, its walls towering majestically over the
marshlands. It had been an important trading post for
salt centuries ago, but now houses only a few old
peasants and a couple of businesses catering to the
occasional pink Brittanic. Brouages cobblestone
streets have the distinction of being the least
bicycle-friendly Ive ever encountered. I stopped at
a souvenir shop for an ice cream and pondered over
whether Fred had or would make the same stop (he did, I
learned later).

The road onwards to
Rochefort involved climbing a veryhigh bridge against the
wind utter hell, but a terrific view at the top.
The town billed itself as a "new" city, built
in the 17th century as another military
stronghold. Unusual for France, its streets are on a
perfect grid. According to my guidebook, Rochefort is
also known as "the city of Pierre Loti." I rode
on rue Pierre Loti past the Place Pierre Loti and the
Maison Pierre Loti, all the time wondering if Id
ever read anything by this apparently famous author.

La Rochelle was still
30-odd kilometers away, against the wind and on a busy
road, so I decided to take a train. The ride in the
little one-car conveyance took less than twenty minutes.
I stood with my bike right behind the strikingly handsome
conductor, who was telling a colleague how he worked as a
film actor in between stints of driving his train. The
tracks followed a string of beaches, and every time we
passed a topless girl the conductor would toot his
whistle. Once we arrived at the terminus, he helped me
unload my bike and instructed me how to get to the center
of town, where I found Fred waiting for me on the
cathedral steps an hour before our appointed rendezvous.
I was filled with relief that he had made it, and soon we
were exchanging stories of our respective adventures and
exploring this beautiful old seaside town.

( My route, unlike
Andys, kept me off busy roads all the way to La
Rochelle.)